Ashes
by Madame Seabush
Summary: Everything burns. And as the Doctor loses himself in the ashes, all the Master can do is watch. AU. Oneshot.


**Author Notes**: AU. Oneshot. R&R appreciated. I hope it's not too confusing for anyone, you can state what bits confused you but I probably won't change them at all :| I'm lazy. I'm also hoping this one is a little bit longer than my previous stories. Just a little? Ah, nevermind. No one ever reads the author notes anyway.

**Acknowledgments**: A special thanks to my wife, Casey for putting up with such a stubborn bastard like myself and going over everything for me and helping with the title and description :D I would also like to thank the holidays for coming around and helping me to actually finish this, and Sam for being creepily yet endearingly enthusiastic about it's completion.

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_The human race. Make sense out of chaos. Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful, but only if it's being observed._

**Tardis.**

When they had lost her in fire, the universe had burnt with her and time stood still. Suddenly the stars and planets felt so much further away, as if they had been pulled out from underneath them. Isolated in the dark. Neither of them could breathe.

The Master could only watch as his counterpart was torn to pieces, could only listen as the tortured screams penetrated the air in their torment.

The Doctor's knees buckled beneath him and the Master grabbed him quickly to keep him from hitting the ground, embracing him in a strong grip, murmuring reassurance in a language long forgotten. An ancient dialect, with the soothing of the finest instrument, falling upon deaf ears.

The Doctor could barely breathe. Each agonizing gasp sent slivers of excruciating pain tearing through him and he arched his back in the intensity of it. An involuntary sob escaped his throat, moaning as he shook violently. An entire consciousness was being ripped from his synapses. Their minds, The TARDIS' and his own, had grown over hundreds of years and were now being torn apart as one burned and melted into darkness.

The Master had seen it before, had seen Time Lords separated from their TARDIS', and had seen too many weak willed perish during the process. He could see the same fear in the Doctors eyes, as he had seen in theirs, sheer terror. It scared him, too, to be so helpless, to be without control.

He had tried to share the pain, to take away the concentration, share in the loss, to grieve as one, to breathe as one but the Doctor pushed him back, forced him from his mind and took the punishment as his own, part of him knowing that he deserved it, for not protecting her, for not protecting the Master.

All he could feel was death, the decay as the parts of his mind which had once accommodated her were lost in fire and destruction. All he could hear was her cries and all he could do was cry with her. Her desperate pleas for help echoed in an unstable mind as she reached out for him. _Please, don't leave me, please_.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Tears streamed down his face, heart wrenching sobs shaking his frame. He couldn't move, could barely feel the hands which steadied him then. His insides felt as if they were being shredded, it was overwhelming. Fire bubbled up in his throat and sharp metallic liquid spilled over his tongue. Golden particles swirled at his extremities, energy crawling beneath the surface of his skin, every cell in his body _screaming_ at him to regenerate.

…And then she was gone,

and there was nothing but silence.

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**Fields**.

The Doctor had started wandering off at night. The Master wasn't sure where he went or how he managed to leave without waking him, but in the dark of night he would wake to an empty bed and no indication of his whereabouts. _It terrified him_. After all they had been through, all those stars, all those planets they had fought across, he had never thought it possible to lose anyone on a planet so small.

The panic attacks, the hours spent staring up at a cloudy night sky waiting for the stars that never appeared, the days he didn't bother to get out of bed… all of that he could handle, because he could be there for him, because they were together but when the Doctor disappeared in the dead of night, he was truly alone.

It was only after hours of searching that he found him, standing in the middle of the wide open field, staring longingly up at the stars. His eyes glassy with tears, full of such unbridled longing and pain.

The Doctor's consciousness brushed gently against his, the weight of misery curling lazily around his synapses, pulling him in. Heady with the thick, heaviness of despair, the Master slowly approached. His expression indicated nothing, but deep hazel reflected so much despondency.

There was only silence between them before the Doctor spoke, "They're beautiful, aren't they? I mean, I never really stopped...and _looked_ at them before from all the way down here...but they're beautiful."

"They are." The Master agreed in a non-committal tone.

Tears stung The Doctor's eyes and he crossed his arms, trying to hold himself together and all the Master could do was watch as the Doctor fell apart.

The agony was in knowing there was more than what you could see. To know that there were infinite galaxies out there - filled with billions of stars beyond the sky.

"Is... this it?" the emotion welled up in his chest, constricted his words, suffocating him in a world that offered no escape, nothing but repetition, routine and mendacity. "Is this all we'll ever see?"

He couldn't respond. To agree would have been cruel of him but his silence was confirmation enough.

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**Every Night Afterward**.

Every night afterward, there was something that the Doctor forgot. Little pieces, at first, but then he would forget whole worlds. He used to be able to name so many of them, but these days he struggled to remember the names of the constellations that hung above Earth. It was as if he were losing parts of himself, and each night the Master would mourn another memory. It was one thing to lose someone, but it was quite another to lose someone so slowly.

The Doctor lay on the grass, surrounded by darkness. The cool blades of shadowy green were soft against his skin and he could feel the Masters warmth through the suit fabric as he rested his head in his lap. It was impossible to know what was missing from your mind once it was lost, he could feel the emptiness, the jumps in memory. But if he concentrated hard enough, he was somewhere else. On another planet, with the Master. Complete again.

In the silence, the Master wondered how he had found this place, such an isolated space away from humanity. He thought it scarcely possible, what with the human race hitting their technological peak.

Sitting beside the other, he ran slender fingers through his hair in calm, soothing strokes. His own thoughts wandered whilst the Doctor simply gazed up at the stars, each sparkle of silver reflecting in honey brown orbs. The Master was struck by the profound sadness within them, such deep despair and yearning.

"Tell me about Gallifrey." A soft voice murmured as their gaze met.

His chest ached to remember. But there was so much more pain in forgetting.

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**Dialect**.

The Doctor looked upon him with such terror and misunderstanding, delicate fingers traced across perfect lips in an effort to understand what was happening to him. "…What are you saying?" The Doctor asked, his articulation of the ancient language near perfection though he didn't recognise it, "…what language was that?"

The time had finally come when the language center of his brain had begun to deteriorate. What had once possessed infinite languages, ranging from Judoon to Ancient Martian, now struggled to keep a basis of Standard English and his birth language, Gallifreyan.

"Gallifreyan." The Master responded, "That's what you can hear."

It had been gradual, beginning with a need for an occasional reminder, progressing into whole hours before he found himself again. Whole hours would go past before he would remember their dialect, the silvery, melodic language of their home planet.

But then there were lapses where he didn't understand what The Master was saying at all, those moments where he looked on, fearful of his loss of comprehension.

"Gallifrey?" the Doctor questioned, rolled the foreign word around his tongue, the articulation was familiar to him, but the connotation wasn't. The Master felt the knife twist and he hardened his jaw. He couldn't respond, couldn't find his voice, could only watch as the Time Lord he had grown so close to was consumed by the race he wholly despised.

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**See Nothing, Hear Nothing.**

The Doctor had always smelt of honey and hazel, an undeniable sweetness that was as perplexing as it was inviting. It fascinated him. There was no way to properly explain it, the spice of his scent, the nostalgia which accompanied it. Impossible.

Leaning into the other and breathing deep, his eyes slipped shut, overtaken by the exhaustion and emotional fatigue. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept, could only remember the hours spent watching the Doctor sleep, hoping that his dreams would bring the past back to him, restore him to his former self.

Heal him.

The Doctor glanced down at the Master resting against him, his eyes shut and breathing evenly. He was struck by a distant familiarity, the faintest of memories shining through a damaged mind. He could see the Academy, the nights he would let Koschei rest against him when he was awake, worrying about exams, about social discords, the future. It all seemed so silly now. It had all been so temporary.

Koschei had become the Master, had suffered so much that he had come to feel so little but the Doctor knew that he cared for him, could see the pain in his eyes when even the nastiest comment would roll off his tongue.

Sighing deeply, he settled down with him. He _needed_ to remember this. If he couldn't remember old memories, then he needed to create new ones. He didn't want to forget the Master and it terrified him to think that there would be a time where he would look upon him and see no-one. Listen to the stories of their past, but hear nothing.

As he shut his eyes, tears rolled lazily down his cheeks. He could taste the grief on his lips, feel the weight in his chest, but if he closed his eyes, he was closer to Gallifrey than he had ever been, back at the Academy. _Safe_.

And just like those days back in Prydon, they put each other to sleep.

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**Saw Right Through Him**.

The day finally came when the Doctor no longer saw him, was no longer the Doctor and no longer a Time Lord. It hurt to look at him now. He looked so _young_. The age in his eyes had disappeared; all those years he had lived had finally been erased, all those thoughts and feelings, lost. And treasured memories had been lost forever.

His eyes showed a man with no history, new to a world that was new to him. He used to have all the answers but now he only had questions and so many of them. The Master was struck by how such mirthful youth could be born from heartache and misery.

Nothing troubled him anymore, a man who had suffered no loss, had never loved or been loved.

The Doctor smiled, but saw right through him, saw nothing but a stranger staring back at him. "John Smith," he introduced himself, extending his hand to shake. The same naivety he remembered from Prydon in those honey brown eyes.

"Koschei." Their hands met and shook in a polite but unfamiliar and meaningless way. The Master had never touched this man, and John Smith had never felt him.

"That's a different name." John Smith speculated.

The Master swallowed, feeling the familiar weight in his chest, "It's Gallifreyan." He hated the flicker of hope that refused to be extinguished, part of him hoping he would remember, hoping that he hadn't forgotten. That he would look at him, and actually _see_ him.

"…is that in Ireland?" A naïve voice rang out, with that same curiosity but without depth in his eyes. A shadow of the man he once was. Wasn't even that.

It was almost ludicrous, and he wished he could have laughed but the pain was too much to bare. "…Yeah." He exhaled quietly, tired of fighting, tired of losing everything, tired of it all. "That's in Ireland." A weak smile was all he could offer, laced with such suffering.

Certainty came with every passing day. The same routine. Day would yield to night, every morning the sun would rise, and set again in the evening. The planet was beautiful, but there was nothing for them there. There never had been.

Without the Doctor, he was truly alone, the last of the Time Lords.

_In the end you just get tired, tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone._

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End file.
